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MYSELF AND I 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
ATI^NTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMU.LAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd . 

TORONTO 



MYSELF AND I 



BY 
7^^ FANNIE STEARNS DAVIS )^Mfiyi^t 



Nfut fork 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1913 

AU rigftis reserved 






Copyright, igos, 1906, igo8, 1909, loio, 1911, 1912, 1913, by The Ridgeway 
Company, The Independent Weekly, Inc., Lippincott's Magazine, The At- 
lantic Monthly Company, Harper & Brothers, The Century Company, 
The Butterick Publishing Company, The Yale Review, The Curtis Pub- 
lishing Company, and The Four Seas Company. 



Copyright, 1913, 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY 
Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1913 



PRESS OF T. UORET & SOK, 
UKEENFIELD, MASS., 0. S. A. 



) CI. A3 4 6 51': 






TO 



M^ l^ati}tr an& Matl^er 



CONTENTS 



A Joy from Little Things 
Myself and I . . . 
The Forbidden Lure 
The Moods 
A Ballad of Return 

Day 

The Rebel 

Wood Wandering 

The Ends of the Earth 

Up a Hill and a Hill 

Rainy Weather 

The Dead Folk 

Strong Desires 
Tall Lilac-Tree Beside My Door 
The Silent Day 
Soul vs. Body . 

1 Lay Beneath the Apple-Tree 
Beyond Recall ... 
The Doors 
Song, After Sorrow 
The City's Cry . 
Beneath the Wall 
Over the City, Night 
To Other Small Verse-Makers 
The Dream-Self 
Souls .... 



page 

I 

2 

8 

lO 
12 

15 
17 
19 

21 
23 
24 
27 
29 

31 
33 
35 
37 
40 
42 
44 
45 
47 
49 
51 
52 
55 



viii 


CONTENTS 










PAGE 


Origins 56 


The Nights 














60 


Faith 














62 


Gipsy Feet 














64 


Singing 














67 


Dawn-Dream 














68 


Hill-Fantasy 














70 


Warning 














75 


My House . 














77 


Free 














81 


A Sea-Spell 














83 


Nocturne (For Music) 












84 


Heart 0' The Wood . 












8S 


Water-Fantasy . 












87 


The Glad Day . 












90 


Earth-Bound 












93 


The Secret Thing 












95 


Oh Never Shut Your Dooi 


I on 


Me 








96 


Years 












98 


To Lonely Youth 












99 


I Went to Seek Her 












102 


The Red Road . 












103 


Not for Your Sakes 












105 


Comrades . 












107 


Silence 












108 


After Copying Goodly Poetry 










no 


The Hermit on the Dunes 










112 


Tece Songs of Conn the Fc 


lOL 










121 



MYSELF AND I 



A JOY FROM LITTLE THINGS 

To press a joy from little things, — 

From feet that fall in time, 
From daylong silent fashionings 

Of some heart-hidden rhyme, — 

From shapes of leaves and clouds and snow, 

From others' brighter eyes, 
From thinking, "I am dull, I know. 

But some are glad and wise," — 

From love remembered, though too dim 

For laughter or for tears, 
One fragile flame, too pale and slim 

To gleam on grayer years, — 

That is one way of Joy, I know, 

Yet I desire, desire. 
To go the way a god might go 

Through Love and Life and Fire! 



MYSELF AND I 

Myself and I went wandering to-day. 

We walked the long white webbed roads away, 

Saw much green marsh-land, much blue splendid 

sea. 
The wind was happy with Myself and me. 

Now we had read a book whose burden blew 
With a brave honest air of being true. 
It said, "Express Thyself, Thyself alway. 
True to Thyself, thou canst not go astray. 
Ask of the inner Voice, the inner Light, 
And heaven-clear shall be thine outer sight. 
Obey, — and thou shalt always seek and find 
God in the clay, the Spirit on the wind." 

So said I, "To Myself I will be true. 
Speak on, Myself, what I to-day shall do." 
Myself, thereat rejoicing, crowed aloud. 
We were elate as angels on a cloud! 



MYSELF AND I 3 

The day was ours. Myself with merry mien 
Said, "Thou shalt wear thy gown of shoal-sea 

green : 
Thy curious gown, and plaited in thy hair 
Grasses and glistering sea-weeds dank and rare. 
To-day thou shalt a mermaid-creature be, 
And skip along the surges of the sea." 

Then I must labor with Myself. "Indeed 

I love the green gown and the wreathed weed. 

But every one would turn and stare at me 

As I ran down the marshes to the sea! 

And if beside the surf alone I go, 

What strange bad folk may meet me there? Dost 

know? — 
O, dear Myself, such joys we cannot take. 
Or every tongue will wag and head will shake!" 

Myself, demurring, yet did give consent. 
Discreetly garbed, on sober roads we went. 

The wind came up from out the gleaming west. 
And shook the poplar trees, and downward pressed 
The bright gray-headed grasses, and the bay 
Bristled its blue hair like a hound. Straightway 



4 MYSELF AND I 

Myself, long throbbing in my throat, cried out, 
"Run with the wind! oh, race with him and shout! 
Sing to the sun! be merry as the grass! 
Now all the gladness of the earth doth pass. 
Thou wouldst not be my wild green mermaid-thing, 
But oh, I prithee, laugh, and run, and sing! " 

Then must I labor with Myself. "But lo, 
Along the road much people pass us. No. — 
If I should sing and run, to-morrow we 
In durance with the Crazy Folk might be, 
Wouldst thou, strait-jacketted, be fain to sing? 
O, dear Myself, ask not so mad a thing!" 

Upon a porch with scarlet vines o'errun 

A darling baby tottered to the sun. 

With little cooing cries he greeted us. 

" See! " said Myself, " He is more glorious 

Than all the sun. Go up and kiss him, thou. 

He is more sweet than bloom on any bough." 

Then must I labor with Myself. "But stay! 
His mother by the lattice hid away 
Doth watch him. She will hate me if I dare 
To touch him. Look, already doth she stare 



MYSELF AND I 5 

Because we loiter by the little wall. 
Myself, that was the maddest thing of all." 

Myself made outcry. " Shame ! thou hast not done 

Of all the things I bid a single one. 

If to Thyself thou art not ever true, 

How shall the eyes of God come piercing through 

This masked world?" 

I had no answer pat. 
Myself had caught me, I admitted that: — 
And to atone, I swore by wind and sky 
To do Myself 's next bidding, should I die! 

Myself triumphant, I not too content, 
Down divers white and sunny ways we went. 

All suddenly across the curving road 
A youth as tall as plumy Hector strode; 
As tall, as brave in fashion. Faith, he seemed 
A hero-shape some epic minstrel dreamed! 
With proud high step and level sea-blue eyes. 
He looked a god on gallant enterprise. 

Up leapt Myself. "Oh, make him turn thy way! 
Stumble, or swoon! oh, somehow make him stay! 



6 MYSELF AND I 

Thy blood and his are kin, thy heart doth beat. 
Surely, ah surely, he would find thee sweet! 
Let him not pass, he is so brave to see! " — 
He passed. I know not if he glanced at me. 

Then must I truly labor with Myself. 

I said, "O vain, preposterous! Thou elf, 

Thou wicked witch, thou monstrous mischief, 

thou 
Consummate little mock at conscience, how 
Dost thou expect obedience to such 
Unseemly promptings? I have borne too much. 
Out on thee (yet I love thee) ! Now be still. 
God help me if I work thy naughty will." 

At eve Myself and I came home. That book 
Down from its high and portly place we took. 
And read, "Express Thyself, Thyself alway. 
True to Thyself, thou canst not go astray." 
— I looked Myself between the dancing eyes : 
They dazzled me, they were so wild and wise. 
"Myself," I said, "art thou a naughtier one 
Than any other self beneath the sun? 
Or why, why, why, — could I not once obey 
Thine innocent glad bidding, all this day?" 



MYSELF AND I 7 

Myself's bright eyes were clouded o'er with tears. 
Myself 's gay voice was dim as dust of years. 
"Ah," said Myself, "the book is true. And I 
Am very naughty sometimes. See, I cry 
Repentance. Yet so mad I needs must be 
Or else the world would choke and smother mc. 
The world must choke me. No more like a faun 
The Spirit, running free, takes dusk and dawn 
With earth-simplicity. Thou canst not do 
These sudden happy things I call thee to. — 
And yet, young Puritan, be kind to me! 
I am more precious than thy treasury 
Of maxims. Yes, deny me often. Go 
The sober road. Yet always deep below 
Thy silent days, remember, I am here, 
Defiant, singing, shadowed not by fear 
Of Change or Death. Remember me, although 
I am so wild, and wanton with thee so. — 
For I, though all the world throw stones at me, 
Am Light, am Voice, am God's own Spark in thee ! " 

We laid the great book back upon its shelf. 
Between two tears, I smiled in at Myself. 



THE FORBIDDEN LURE 

"Leave all and follow, follow! " 

Lure of the sun at dawn, 
Lure of a wind-paced hollow, 

Lure of the sun withdrawn; 
Lure of the brave old singing 

Brave ancient minstrels knew; 
Of dreams like sea-fog clinging 

To boughs the night sifts through. 

"Leave all and follow, — follow! " 

The sun goes up the day; 
Flickering wing of swallow, 

Blossoms that blow away, — 
What would you, luring, luring. 

When I must bide at home? 
My heart will break her mooring, 

And die in reef -flung foam ! 

Oh, I must never listen! 

Call not outside my door. 
Green leaves, you must not glisten 

Like water any more. 



THE FORBIDDEN LURE 

Beauty, wandering Beauty, 
Pass by; speak not. For see, 

By bed and board stands Duty 
To snatch my dreams from me! 



THE MOODS 

The Moods have laid their hands across my hair: 
The Moods have drawn their fingers through my 

heart: 
My hair shall never more lie smooth and bright, 
But stir like tide-worn sea-weed, and my heart 
Shall never more be glad of small sweet things, — 
A wild rose, or a crescent moon, — a book 
Of little verses, or a dancing child. 
My heart turns crying from the rose and book, 
My heart turns crying from the thin bright moon. 
And weeps with useless sorrow for the child. 
The Moods have loosed a wind to vex my hair. 
And made my heart too wise, that was a child. 

Now I shall blow hke smitten candle-flame: 
I shall desire all things that may not be: 
The years, the stars, the souls of ancient men, 
All tears that must, and smiles that may not be, — 
Yes, glimmering lights across a windy ford, 



THE MOODS II 

And vagrant voices on a darkened plain. 

And holy things, and out-cast things, and things 

Far too remote, frail-bodied to be plain. 

My pity and my joy are grown alike. 
I cannot sweep the strangeness from my heart. 
The Moods have laid swift hands across my hair : 
The Moods have drawn swift fingers through my 
heart. 



A BALLAD OF RETURN 

Behold, I have served you a year and a day, 

But now I am fain to be going away. — 

I have bent my back to the tasks ye set 

And bound my hair in a sober net: 

I have knelt in the kirk and tried to pray. 

Though my thoughts were wandering far away. 

I have given few words to your words, though ye 

In God's own sight have been good to me. — 

Mistress and master and children all, 

I cry a blessing on hearth and hall. 

May ye sleep in peace and rise in the sun, 

And an angel follow you every one, — 

But I, — it's out from your hall I go 

Ere ever the morning star dips low. 

For my mother was born of the gipsy folk, 
A child of the wind and the wandering smoke; 
And a braw brown sailor fathered me, 
Over across the windy sea. 



A BALLAD OF RETURN 13 

In a low-browed house by the hollow shore 
I dreamed all night to the breakers' roar: 
I danced all day on the dunes that lie 
Bare to the wind and the driven sky. 
Ships and sea-wrack and fog I knew 
As a hill knows the sun and a rose the dew. 

And when I was grown to a slip of a lass, 
With eyes that widened to meet my glass, 
'Twas a lither lad from the secret sea 
Who drew the heart from the side of me. 
He kissed me and gave me a crooked ring, 
And bade me to pray for his voyaging. 
Up the hill of the terrible sea, 
Under the unknown stars sailed he; 
But oh, he will come! he will come to me! 

My mother sleeps 'neath an ash-tree, high 
On a craggy hill where the eagles cry. 
My father lies drowned where the bitter seas 
Rage at the roots of the Hebrides. 

I have lain in a byre and watched the lift 

Of the first white dawn when the Two Winds shift, 

And the stars go pale, and the cattle stir. 

And the sun calls "Wake!" like a trumpeter. 



14 A BALLAD OF RETURN 

I have hung in a fir-tree's fork, and felt 
The lightning stab and the strong hail pelt. 
I have sailed all day in the blank-eyed mist 
Over bays that the long reefs tear and twist. 
And thrice I have heard in the night the cry 
Of the Hosts of the Dead go by, go by: 
Drifting over the Bar of Dread, 
Or riding over the Bridge of the Dead, 
Wrapped in fog, with their eyes as bright 
As lost ships' lanterns at mid o' night. 

I have served you humbly a year and a day, 
But now I am fain to be going away. — 

Farewell! farewell! for I stand no more 
In sunshine or starshine beside your door. 
Sea- wrack and wind and the wayside smoke: 
For my mother was born of the gipsy folk. 



DAY 

There is your day. 
Up ! Away ! 

The still, untroubled forest stirs. 

The doves' nests in the deep black firs 

Move and pulse and beat; 

Quivers of leaves, like heat, 

Run down the birches' boughs; 

One steady wind-blade ploughs 

A furrow in the lake; 

The small wild roses take 

Sudden warm blushes; all the sky 

Grows into blue. — O Sun, come by! 
The forest breathes and waits: 
Birds call their mates: 
White flowers shake on stems : 
Lake ripples gleam like gems: 
The morning star is near to die: — 
Sun! Come by! 
IS 



1 6 DAY 

You, sleepy-eyed, leap up; let slip 
Warm dreams, and make your lashes drip 
With quick cold water. Eat, and pray 
Before the sun, and laugh, and say 
" God's joy be with my world to-day! " 

There is your day. 
Up! Away! 



THE REBEL 

Find me by the water-side, 
Find me in the wood : 

Take me as you find me, quick, 
If you find me good! 

Oh, I'm weary of the way 

Up the hill to church. 
I should like to be the wind 

In the silver birch: 
I should like to be the stream 

Singing to the sea, 
Or the shadows of swift wings, 

Woven curiously. 
Or a rabbit in the brake, 

Or a speckled trout 
In the green-and-gloomy-pool 

Lazing it about. 

Why should such as I abide 

Rusting like a blade 
In a mildewed scabbard? Oh, 

Wherefore was I made 
17 



THE REBEL 

With such lusty lively feet, 

Such a love of sky, 
If I may not run and leap? 

If I may not fly? 

I am going far away 

From the church-crowned hill: 
Where the surf makes silence roar, 

Or the leaves He still. 
Follow, follow, follow me! 

Folk who know, as I, 
That the Joy of Living calls 

When the wind goes by! 

Find me by the waterside, 

Find me in the wood : 
Take me as you find me, quick, 

If you find me good! 



WOOD WANDERING 

Fairy o' the bean bloom, Fairy o' the pea, 

Fairy o' the pink hedgerose, show yourselves to me! 

Green goblin o' the grass, limber lively lad, 

Fife up to the wild feet that joy of you drives mad ! 

Down through the garden, all across the grove, 
Fairy o' the pine-needles, whither shall I rove ? 
Neither hare nor deer am I, catamount nor snake; 
Just a wild-wood-wanderer, — and what's the way 
to take ? 

River at the foot of me, restless with his rocks. 
Tickled by the white birch-tree's long green lady- 
locks ; 
Cliff at my shoulder; forest at my back; 
Meadow deep with daisies — what do I lack? 

Nothing in the wide world save another face, 
Save another cloven foot to tempt me to a race. 
Fairy o' the Satyr- wind, be visible to me! 
Never man nor woman sees the wilding world I see. 

19 . 



20 WOOD WANDERING 

Fairy o' the frail fern, slender fairy girl, 

Fairy o' the thistle-down, lead me all awhirl! 

You of the water-fall, you of berry-brake, 

You of the wet green moss, show the way to take! 

What's the world but green and gold? What's love 

but this — 
Touching hands with tendriled vines, giving air 

your kiss? 
Who desires the ugly flesh, when his soul can run 
Clean to the world's caress, splendid to the sun? 



THE ENDS OF THE EARTH 

Oh, lift your feet and follow away 

To the bounds of the dark and the ends of the day! 

Heigho! heigho! the Red Winds blow, 

And a flame of a leaf down the road doth go: 

A coal, a spark, that dances away. 

Luring and leading you out of the day — 

To the hill that's black and the sky that's red, 

And a great white star set low overhead, 

And a little white moon like a twisted thread 

Athrill in the web of the well-wrought red. 

Oh, lift your feet and follow away! 
The Red Winds over your shoulder say: 
"The Ends of the Earth lie far, lie far, 
But close as the hill to the great white star; 
The Ends of the Earth are fair to find, 
So red with sunset and keen with wind; 
And the spark of a leaf flies fast before. 
Blowing across the world's wide floor, 



2 2 THE ENDS OF THE EARTH 

Red, red, red, — oh, a sharp-blown fire! 

And luring you on like your heart's desire! 

Oh, lift your feet and follow away 

To the bounds of the dark and the ends of the day: 

Red, red, red, as a flame are they!" 

Heigho! heigho! the Red Winds blow, 

And the rush of a race to your feet doth go. 

And over the hill and into the sky 

You must follow and follow the chasing cry — 

Follow the spark to the still white star. 

To the Ends of the Earth, — oh far, so far! 

At the bounds of the dark and the ends of the day! 

Oh, lift your feet and follow away! 



UP A HILL AND A HILL 

Up a hill and a hill there's a sudden orchard-slope, 

And a little tawny field in the sun ; 
There's a gray wall that coils Hke a twist of frayed- 
out rope, 

And grasses nodding news one to one. 

Up a hill and a hill there's a windy place to stand, 
And between the apple-boughs to find the blue 

Of the sleepy summer sea, past the cliffs of orange 
sand, 
With the white charmed ships sliding through. 

Up a hill and a hill there's a little house as gray 
As a stone that the glaciers scored and stained; 

With a red rose by the door, and a tangled garden- 
way, 
And a face at the window, checker-paned. 

I could climb, I could cUmb, till the shoes fell off my 
feet. 
Just to find that tawny field above the sea! 
Up a hill and a hill, — oh, the honeysuckle's sweet! 
And the eyes at the window watch for me! 
23 



RAINY WEATHER 

Up comes 'Bouncing Bet' again, 

Pink and lusty in the lane. 

Tansy's odor keener is 

Than all incense-mysteries. 

Oh, the trees! 

How they strain 

In the driven windy rain! 

All the marsh-grass bows its head, 

All the tide- ways blur and spread, 

And the bay 

Is as gray 

As the roof o' the miller's shed. 

Up the hill I run, together 
With the wet and windy weather. 
Hair in eyes and dripping cheek, 
(Oh, how cool and soft and sleek 
Is the hand-touch of the rain!) 
'Bet' and I bounce up the lane. 
24 



RAINY WEATHER 25 

There the Dead Folk's decent rows 
Flank me, and the church upstands 
With its high gray shoulders, close 
On the Dead Folks' silent lands. 

— Oh, the trees. 
How they strain! 

Writhe and reach and fear the rain! 

— 'Bet' and I bounce up the lane. 

All the houses' eyes are shut. 
Still are they as Dead Folk, but 
Here a face and there a bloom 
Nodding scarlet to the gloom 
Say the Dead alone do lie 
On the hill, against the sky. 

Oh, the wind, the driven rain! 

How the silver poplars strain ! 

How the world seems wide and low 

As along the lane I blow, 

All alone, and glad to be 

For a little. Beat on me, 

Wild wet weather! Strike me, wind! 

Flare my brown cape out behind; — 

Winged as a gull I fly 

All alone beneath the sky. 



26 RAINY WEATHER 

Oh, the trees, 

How they strain ! 

How they clamor and complain ! 

Reckless in the sea-tinged rain, 

' Bet ' and I bounce up the lane. 



THE DEAD FOLK 

The Dead Folk live in decent rows; 

Their houses all are neat. 
But through their doorways no one goes, 

With dull or dancing feet. 

The Dead Folk are a harmless host. 

I have not ever seen 
One single cautious, moon-gray ghost 

Slip o'er the shadowy green. 

I doubt if they are ever glad 

Or sorry; though indeed 
It often makes me still and sad 

To think they give no heed. 

But in a few years more or less 

I shall not care at all 
How many people peer and guess 

Above the churchyard wall. 
27 



28 THE DEAD FOLK 

And when they step about my house, 
And read my door-plate, — why, 

I shall be quiet as a mouse, 
No matter how they cry. 

Or if too long ago I went 
Down yonder for their tears, 

I do not think I shall resent 
The silence of the years. 

My body is a curious thing. 

My soul's not half so strange, 
Who may go forth on gleaming wing. 

And take no touch of change. 

But that my body should lie still, 

And never dance or run. 
And never climb a crooked hill, 

And never see the sun, — 

This is a strange, strange thing to me; 

And stranger yet it grows 
Each time I stop awhile to see 

The Dead Folk's decent rows. 



O STRONG DESIRES 

STRONG desires that hurt the heart 
With useless strife of blunted wings, 

1 weary of your travailings. — 

Why must you always surge and start 
When I am nearest happiness? 
Across the freedom of the sky 
Like dazzling phantom gods you fly; 
And seeing you, my joy is less. 

When sometimes, by an April brook, 
Beneath the birchen buds I kneel, 
And, almost turned a Dryad, feel 
The thrill of that green life which shook 
Old woodlands that the Hellenes knew, — 
When every breath is rare and good, — 
There sweeps a shudder down the wood: 
Wild-hearted wonders pierce me through. 

Or when beside the hearth I lie 
And listen to the liquid flame, 
While One I love most speaks my name, 
And in that peace my dreams all die, — 
29 



30 O STRONG DESIRES 

Then from the shadow-pools beyond 
Our small red-circled joy, there leap 
Tall shapes, fantastical as sleep, 
To call us mortal, helpless, fond, 
And blind my eyes with visions, vain, 
Enormous, never known on earth : 
A longing for immortal mirth 
That mortal Hps may never stain. 

O strong desires! worthless wings! 
Star-reachings, heaven-failings! why 
Will you remind me I must die 
To taste the utmost joyful things? 



" TALL LILAC-TREE BESIDE MY DOOR " 

Tall lilac-tree beside my door, 

How many Mays for me 
Shall you stand murmuring once more 

In pale sweet ecstasy? 

Deep meadows, flushed and daisy-drowned, 

How many Junes shall I 
Among your flowery foam be found 

To hear your larks' long cry? 

Cold moon beyond my maple trees, 

How often shall I know 
Your frosty flashing mysteries 

Of silence and of snow? 

And, little house of hearth that thrills, 

And chambers cool and gray, 
How old an I shall sweep your sills 

And wind your clocks, some day? 
31 



32 "TALL LILAC-TREE BESIDE MY DOOR" 

— Oh, there are stars to-night to see: 
They march, they burn, they sing. 

How many nights of stars for me? 
OJ stars; oj wondering ? — 



THE SILENT DAY 

Yesterday I awoke 

With a sunward spirit. A bubble 
Of song from my soul outbroke. 

I had never heard of trouble: 

I had never heard of despair : 
And the day was a curving ripple 

Of windy musical air 
And blossoms that toss and tipple. 

Yesterday I awoke 

With a singing splendor above me. 
Even the stupidest folk 

Turned in the street to love me! 

Now to-day I am still 
As a stone in a frosty river; 

As a stone in the heart of a hill, 
Under grasses that hiss and shiver. 

33 



34 THE SILENT DAY 

No sun over my way 

Summons the world to see me. 
This is the Silent Day 

When twinklings and tinklings flee me. 

Courage, my heart, dead-dumb ! 

Hold thyself hard from aching! 
Silence is kind to come 

Lest the splendor strain thee to breaking! 



SOUL VS. BODY 

Though Age is fifty years from me, 
And Youth is close to me as breath, 
My Soul too clearly can descry 
Whither my Body journeyeth : 
Whither my Body journeyeth: 
A level land, a sober land, 
Where I shall walk with stumbhng feet 
And listless eyes and groping hand : 
Where I shall half forget my name, 
And stand an hour long, seeking it: 
Where I shall freeze, and o'er the flame 
Half shuddering, half scorched shall sit. 
Thither my Body journeyeth. 
Blood, drop by drop, for toll I pay; 
Though rich in that red coin to-night, 
Youth wastes it bravely day by day. 

But O my Soul, my ageless Soul, 
Already winged for voyaging, 
Why canst thou not fly far, to Youth, 
35 



36 SOUL VS. BODY 

When Body grows a dreary thing? 
And as to-night thou mournest Age, 
Although my Body laughs and leaps, 
Why canst thou not laugh up to Heav'n 
When Body aches, and numbs, and creeps? 

My Soul! I trust my joy to thee; 
More strong art thou than aged Death! 
With thee I fear not to descry 
Whither my Body journeyeth. 



I LAY BENEATH THE APPLE-TREE 

I LAY beneath the apple-tree and heard 

The leaves at endless whisper in the wind; 

Also there passed above me many a bird, 

Or perched and sang. Across my drowsy mind 

Flew sun-and-shadow vagrancies, unshaped : 

How somewhere, one might miss me, — how the 

wings 
Of birds forevermore escaped, escaped, 
The curious eye that watched their wanderings, — 
How I was happier than once, and yet 
I had done little service v/ith my life, — 
(For I might die, and all the world forget 
I ever stretched my hands for sport or strife), 
How one I knew, less old than I had died 
A week ago. 

Where then had journeyed she? 
No more to hear the faint warm hours glide 
With singing feet into Eternity; 
To watch the apple-branches blow and flash, 
— No more. — And then I hid my face and lay 
Half-smothered, blind. Dull as a dead fire's ash 
Became the sunny glamor of the day. 

37 



38 I LAY BENEATH THE APPLE-TREE 

For I remembered those I loved, who passed 
Beyond the sunlight on the eastern pane, 
Beyond the snow and lightning; who at last 
Ceased all their homely wonder, — "Would it 

rain, 
Or shine to-day — " and laid their sorrows by, 
Even old sorrows with old joys, and went 
Whither? Ah, whither? Past the sun and sky? 
Whither? Ah, whither? Proud-souled or forspent? 

So underneath the apple- tree I lay, 
Half in the body, half far-voyaging: 
While any folk who walked the small foot- 
way 
Had said I slept. Not so. On troubled wing 
My soul fared out and beat against the blue, 
And cried against the Gates of God for light. 
But nothing answered, and my soul withdrew 
Baflfled and silent from her fruitless flight. 

And I came home, along the small foot-way. 
Trailing my feet in daisy-grass, I stooped 
To pull the red wild strawberries, and play 
With daisy-heads that bobbed and leaves that 
drooped, 



I LAY BENEATH THE APPLE-TREE 39 

And swift white wayward butterflies. 

I came 
Home to the little house below the hill, 
— Where no one now looks out to call my name, 
And yet, I think I sometimes hear them still. — 

I have been very happy all this day, 
O sun! O wind that blew the apple- tree! 
And yet — you seem so far, so far away, — 
And somehow, it is death stands close to me. 



BEYOND RECALL 

I CANNOT call you back again, 

For you have journeyed far 
Beyond the hosting of the rain 

Or any circled star. 
For you have journeyed suddenly 

Beyond my highest hill. 
I cannot call you back to me 

Who am so earth-bound still. 

In lilac-leaves and boughs of fir, 

Low water-sounds and wind, 
In wings that start and clouds that stir 

Sure excellence I find: 
In touch of hands and flash of eyes. — 

But you, — oh, what of you? 
Grown instantly so strange, so wise, 

And so eternal too. 

I cannot call you back, although 

My loneliness may call. 
What would you now of whirling snow 

And shadows sunset-tall? 
40 



BEYOND RECALL 41 

And I, — what would you now of me? 

I cannot journey. I 
Must wait till I too, suddenly, 

Unlearn this earth, this sky. 



THE DOORS 

The doors open, the doors close. 

Blindfold I stand, and hear them swing 

In the wind of my bewildering. 
The doors open, the doors close. 

One tied a thick cloth over my face, 
And led me into this alien place, 
And left me alone, to grope and hear 
The whispering winds of the world draw near, 
And half, to hope; and half, to fear. 

Do I dare to step? Do I dare to thrust 
My hand in the dark that is thick as dust? 
And what shall I find, if I enter where 
The wind comes forth with a hand on my hair? 
Do I dare? in the dark, — do I dare? 

Which door leads to the face of the sun? 
And which is the precipice-plunging one? 
How shall I turn where the voice sings out 
Like wind and water and sea-men's shout, — 
Sings, and my heart leaps? Where? — I doubt. 
42 



THE DOORS 43 

I doubt. I am baffled. The darkness leans 
Hard on my breast. My brain careens 
Like a drunken galleon. The winds go by. 
I hear the hinges that creak and cry, 
And one says "Live!" and one, "Thou shalt 
die!" 

The doors open. The doors close. 

I reach my hand: it is filled with the dark. 

I cry, and the winds cry "Hark! — oh hark! — " 
And the doors open, the doors close. 



SONG — AFTER SORROW 

Moonshine over the City; 

Moonshine over the Sea. 
I have wandered farther than ever the Moon 

Since last She looked on me. 

Little I knew how far, how far, 

How aching-far I should go, 
With feet of a perilous falling star 

And hair that the Wind weighed low. 

Moonshine over the City; 

Moonshine over the Sea: 
Oh, I am weary as never the Moon 

With wandering curiously! 



THE CITY'S CRY 

The City cries to me all day 

And cries to me all night. 
I do not put its voice away 

When I put out the light. 

With stars and frost and windy things, 

Eternal things and still, 
The City laughs and sobs and sings 

Across my window-sill. 

Sky of Stars, how wide you are! 
How swept with light you lie ! 
Yet never any leaning star 

Can heed the City's cry. 

1 lay awake when past the roofs 
The planets all were strange. 

I heard the City's wheels and hoofs, 
The City's shift and change. 
4S 



46 THE CITY'S CRY 

The planets all were greater far 
Than when I went to sleep; 

And one long splendor of a star 
Across the dark did leap. 

But oh, for all they were so proud, 

I heard the City cry, 
And in my dreams I saw a crowd 

Of wan folk herded by 

Sky of Stars, though you are great, 
Though dreams are heaven-high, 
Monotonous and old as Fate 

1 hear the City cry! 



BENEATH THE WALL 

LITTLE wind, O south wind, 

wind of pleasant feet. 
Step quietly across the wall, 
And bless this sorry street! 

Above the shadowed, damp old wall 

1 see a piece of sky, 

Most blue, — and there are cherry-trees, 
White, white, — and swallows fly, 

Black darting sharp-winged ships of air, 
And there's the sun all day. 
But here below, the street grinds on. 
And it is March, not May, 

little wind, O south wind. 
Come softly down to me ! 
A cherry petal's light as air; 
Blow one across! For see, 

47 



48 BENEATH THE WALL 

The steaming streets, the shrieking wheels, 
The bricks all foul with slime, 
And not a blade of sudden grass 
To tell the season's time. 

And all the people's lips are blue 
As on a sleety day, 
For only up above the wall 
Is sky and sun and May. 

little wind, O south wind, 

O wind of pleasant feet. 

Come down from that walled Paradise, 

And bless this sodden street! 



"OVER THE CITY, NIGHT" 

I SHUT my door; I stand alone; 
My windy gaslight leaps and sings. 

— Over the City weaves the Night 
Her web of secret things. 

Over the City, all the streets 

Grow cavernous with dusk, or glare 

White with a thousand lamps, while I 
Stand, letting down my hair. 

Pale mirrored face, that comes to meet 
My face, with such unseeing eyes, 

Art thou then /, who was so wild, 
And thought myself so wise? 

— Over the City, face on face 
Stares at itself to-night, to find 

Only a curious shell, with eyes 
Wide, meaningless, and blind. 

I walked once in a graveyard place, 

Greeting the Dead Folk from the ground. 

But I am lonelier far to-night 
Than with gray tombs around. 

49 



50 "OVER THE CITY, NIGHT" 

Life! Life! — the silence and the cry! 

The surge of seas without a chart; 
More strange than Death. — Who ever chose 

His course? Born blind, to start 
Adventuring? but now, behold. 

We must fare on, forever fare. 
Over the City, Night. — And I 

Stand, letting down my hair. 



TO OTHER SMALL VERSE-MAKERS 

0, ALL ye little poet-folk, 

Untried, enamored of a dream ; 

Ye, having breathed the altar-smoke. 

And loved a shade, and chased a gleam : — 

In face of all the woful things. 
The long injustices of Life, 
BeUeving somehow, something sings 
Above the sordidness and strife : — 

Ye, gallant grapplers with foul Fate, — 
Let us sing high, then fight. Perchance 
Our voice and valor shall be great 
As Fate's unsinging circumstance. 

all ye little poet-folk, 
Men say we are but fools of God, — 
And yet, Gods breathe the incense-smoke; 
And they are worms that seek the sod. 
51 



THE DREAM SELF 

I SEE myself go up and down: 
I chaffer in the market-town, 
I linger on the willow-bridge, 
And leap upon the mountain ridge. 
I stretch myself to sleep at night 
All drowsy-limbed and lapp'd in white : 
At dawn I stand to greet the sun. 
And softly cry to him. I run 
Up hill and down: my hair flies free: 
Flushed cheeks and panting heart of me! 
In daisy fields I stumble; stoop 
Where hot wild berries hide and droop; 
I chase a bob-o'-link; I hark 
To many a sad-glad meadow-lark; 
In Wood of Firs I hold and hush 
My breath, for oh, the thrush! the thrush! 
And on the white roads do I pass 
An old man here, and there a lass, 
And sometimes shy-faced lads who stare 
And blush, and look away. — Care, 
52 



THE DREAM SELF 53 

Thou hast not touched this Shadow-Me 
Whom light of foot and heart I see ! 

For in what dream-roofed market-town 
Does such an I go up and down? 
And where in all the world the bridge, 
The daisy field, the mountain ridge, 
The Wood of Firs, the songs, the sky, 
The lads and lasses loitering by? 
Ah, where the little white-walled room 
That bids me sleep from seed to bloom 
Of flowery Day? And where, and where, 
Light hands to smooth my flickering hair, 
Light hands I love to hold me, eyes 
To greet me home with laughter wise? 

A Dream Self in a world of dreams: 
A Shadow Self, among the gleams 
The arc-lights cast. A foot unknown 
By barren hall and sodden stone: 
A face unstained by soot and smoke, 
And all the million merciless folk. 

O City, City, set me free 
To live my lonely fantasy! 



54 THE DREAM SELF 

Your hand about my throat is hot. 
I love you not; I love you not; 
Your eyes are hard that stare at me. 

City, City, set me free! 

— I see myself go to and fro. 
The arc-lights quiver, row on row; 
The street-signs wink and jeer with flame; 
But nothing calls me by my name, 
For nothing knows the names I bore 
In those wild precious days of yore. 

Someday, someday, — and though I die, 

1 shall come back, sun! sky! 



SOULS 

My Soul goes clad in gorgeous things, 
Scarlet and gold and blue. 
And at her shoulder sudden wings 
Like long flames flicker through. 

And she is swallow-fleet, and free 
From mortal bonds and bars. 
She laughs, because Eternity- 
Blossoms for her with stars! 

— folk who scorn my stiff gray gown, 
My dull and fooHsh face. 
Can ye not see my Soul flash down, 
A singing flame through space? 

And folk, whose earth-stained looks I hate, 
Why may I not divine 
Your Souls, that must be passionate. 
Shining and swift, as mine? 
55 



ORIGINS 

In many a graveyard by the sea 
Lies ash of what now flames in me. 
And down the aching wilderness 
Blows dust whence got I throat or tress. 
Above black tombs that cities choke 
Dead hearts I echo drift like smoke. 

My father and my mother, they 
Could give me but a tithe of this: 
This intricacy dark or gay 
That is a Masque of mysteries: 
This motley, sudden, awful thing, 
Aladdin's lamp, Pandora's box: 
Cramful of terrors wild to spring, 
Of joy that glories, fear that mocks: 
This me, that, walking down the street, 
Half frightens me. Although I smile 
And chat and bargain, I complete 
Cycles of change in every mile! 
56 



ORIGINS 57 

My father and my mother told 
Of certain folk, waste years away, 
Who, sinful, beautiful, or bold 
In war, in dreaming, in array 
Of strength against their world, are still 
Remembered. Ah, not all from them 
Stretch down these subtle veins that thrill 
Like fires that web an opal gem. 

What gray-eyed Viking gave me sense 

Of kinship with the drowning sea? 

What great dame, steel-white, proud, intense, 

Bestowed these cursed nerves on me? 



Was there a gipsy, long ago? 
And whence my blunted finger-tips 
That love the plain craft-labors so? 
Did one limn pictures, one build ships? 

Who blundered mothwise through the dark 
Of smothering creeds, to find out God? 
And oh, what dreamer like a lark 
So uselessly the sun-path trod? 



58 ORIGINS 

My father and my mother, they 
Have given me so much of good, 
Confounded am I to betray 
Old angers, evil fires that brood 
And blaze, or shameful cowardice. 
Yet long ago, what choler flushed 
A face now melted out like ice? 
What anguish, demon-ready, rushed 
Through stricken limbs? I look within, 
Incredulous, distrait, to spy 
An endless hungry Hell of sin. 
I too had shouted "crucify!" 

— Wind-ridden graves by winter sea. 
What hold ye that may flame in me? 
White dust across the wilderness. 
What wit ye of my throat or tress? 
Black-crusted tombs that cities choke, 
Know I the hearts that stain your smoke? 

Fathers and mothers, up the years 
I call upon you. Touched with tears 
I kneel before you. I repay 
Upon the wind, your gifts. To-day 



ORIGINS 59 

I own myself a patch-work thing, 

A crazy, dust-heap scavenging 

Of you, and you, and you, and you, — 

Poor brave blurred skulls the sand slips through. 

And yet — and yet — « 

I stand alone. 
Now all the wide world seems my own. 
Now time and space and God's own eyes 
Draw down to me. I seem as wise 
As Norns and Sybils. Mystery! 
I nothing am save mimicry? 
And yet, as proud, as fresh as sky, 
Stand I, — another Strange New I! 



THE NIGHTS 

The Nights go by, the Nights go by, 

Since the strong dark night that saw him die. — 

He said not once ''Farewell." He bowed 

Never his forehead fair and proud. 

He reached no hand in agony; 

But he looked at me. He looked at me. 

My soul and his in the strong dark night 
Wing and wing took flight, took flight : 
His before, and my soul behind. 
They fled at the flashing skirts of the wind : 
Stars they swept, and they looked on space 
Where under the forked flames glowed God's face. 
— Then deep they fell from the mystery, 
As he looked at me, and looked at me. 

The Nights like a flock of birds go by 
Since the strong dark night that saw him die. 
Over my head their wings I hear, 
And their steady shadows hover and steer 

60 



THE NIGHTS 6i 

Into my life and out again: 
(Starlight and storm on the pelted pane,) 
But never a night save that alone 
Is all my own, is all my own. 

He said not once "Farewell." His breath 

Trembled no touch of time at Death. 

He asked not, "Whither do I fare?" 

For me no kiss, and for God no prayer. 

But our souls went forth, and learned the way 

That his must go ere dawn of day. 

The Nights go by, the Nights go by, 
Since the strong dark night that saw him die: 
But never a night save that alone 
Is all my own; is all my own. 



FAITH 

Oh, I am tired out to-day: 

The whole world leans against my door: 

Cities and centuries. I pray, — 

For praying makes me brave once more. 

— I should have hved long, long ago, 
Before this age of steel and fire. 
I am not strong enough to throw 
A noose around my soul's desire 
And strangle it, because it cries 
To keep its old, unreasoned place 
In some bright simple Paradise, 
Before a God's too-human face. 

I know that in this breathless fray 
I am not fit to fight and cry. 
My soul grows faint and far away 
From blood and shouting, till I fly 
A blinded coward, back, to hide 
My face against the dim old knees 
Of that too-human God, denied 
By these quick crashing centuries. 
62 



FAITH 63 

And there I learn deep secret things: 
Too frail for speech, too strong for doubt: 
How through the dark of demon-wings 
The same still face of God gleams out; 
How through the deadly riotous roar 
The voice of God speaks on. And then 
I trust Him, as one might before 
Faith grew too fond to comfort men. 

— I should have lived far, far away 
From this great age of grime and gold : 
For still, I know He hears me pray, — 
That close, too-human God of old! 



GIPSY FEET 

Oh, gipsy hearts are many enough, but gipsy feet 

are few! 
Many's the one that loves to dream night-long of 

stars and dew: 
Many's the one that loves the scent of wood-smoke 

by the way. 
And turns a leaping longing heart to every dawn of 

day. 

Gipsy hearts are many enough, but gipsy feet are 
few. — 

Ah, how ill it is to bide unloosed the long year 
through! 

Up and down the loud gray streets, stared at, star- 
ing back, 

Through tarnished trails of the staggering sun and 
soot-fog ochre-black; — 

Dressed in heavy and sober togs, eating of heavy 

fare, 
Hailed by only the screaming street, "Mind! step 

lively there!" 

64 



GIPSY FEET 6s 

Crook-backed over a dusty desk, — bothering to 

and fro 
There in the dull and airless house, — ah, to cut 

and go! — 

Up the hill-roads into the day! Over the sea- ward 

fells, 
Watch the thistle-down dip, and hear the thin 

sheep's huddling bells; 
Run like fire along the field, worship the heart of the 

wood, 
Kneel by the spring that splits the rock, and find 

the white rain good. 

— Oh, gipsy hearts are many enough, but gipsy feet 

are few; 
And secret gods must we worship still, if we worship 

fire and dew. 
For we must bend at the dusty desk, and over the 

counter lean, — 
Toil and moil in the sun-starved house, though 

leaves blow red or green. 

God, great God of the wind's caress, God of the 

sea's salute, 
Why are we chained and muzzled and meshed more 

than our brother the brute? 



66 GIPSY FEET 

Shall there be never a day that all of the gipsy 

hearts may greet, 
Laughing out at the lure of the sun for the lift of the 

gipsy feet? 

But oh, though that day is far to come, and the feet 

forget to go free, 
Pray God that the hearts may not forget the hurt 

and the ecstasy! 
Pray God that never the fret may fail when the 

Spring comes over the year, 
That never the thin gay autumn dawns may seem 

less wild and dear. 

For shall it not be the height of Heaven, wonderful, 

swift, and sweet, 
If into the paths of perilous death may wander the 

gipsy feet? 
May wander free, with the risk of the road, the road 

that the glad Dead know, 
Out where the fires of God flame high, and the winds 

of God lean low! 



SINGING 

I DO not know why they should heed my singing. 
Are they not deaf and blind with urgent Life? 
And what am I, save one small lark, down-flinging 
My sun-song on a battle's blood-red strife? 

— To-day along the street I watched the City: 
The faces, faces, blurred or keen or proud; 
Barren with selfish shame or bright with pity; 
Faces dumb-dreary or that cried aloud. 

And there was nothing for my songs to show them 
Save little idle loveliness, and faith 
Too shy to reach the deep locked hearts below them, 
Slight as a shadow, wavering as a wraith. 

— Oh none the less I must be singing, singing! 
Somehow I think I hold their hearts in trust: 
Their secret sun-song, up the blue air flinging 
Its challenge to the battle-dark and dust! 

67 



DAWN-DREAM 

You dear angel! you wise angel! you angel with 

wonderful wings! 
I heard you out in the great pine-tree, and you sang 

as a wild bird sings. 
I heard you, up in the yellow dawn, before the frost 

is away. 
O dear angel ! O wise angel ! lean down to my face, 

I pray! 
Your hands would be cool and your cheeks would be 

cool; your wings would be cool as a rose: 
If you would but bless me a blessing, small as the 

littlest wind that blows! 

All night, all night, did I lie awake, and the moon 

looked in at me. 
She was so terribly, mortally white, and the stars 

were as dumb as she. 
Yet they told me I was a fool, a fool, for my dreams 

that never come true: 
But oh, while I watched for the yellow dawn, out 

here in the pine sang you! 

68 



DAWN-DREAM 69 

You dear angel! you wise angel! you angel with 

wonderful wings! 
Lean down for a minute, and kiss me — so — till 

I know there are dream-sweet things! 



HILL-FANTASY 

Sitteth by the red cairn a brown One, a hoofed One, 
High upon the mountain, where the grasses Jail. 
Where the ash-trees flourish far their blazing bunches 

to the sun, 
A brown One, a hoofed One, pipes against the gale. 

I was on the mountain, wandering, wandering; 
No one but the pine trees and the white birch knew. 
Over rocks I scrambled, looked up and saw that 

Strange Thing, 
Peaked ears and sharp horns, pricked against the 

blue. 

Oh, and how he piped there! piped upon the high 

reeds 
Till the blue air crackled like a frost-film on a pool ! 
Oh, and how he spread himself, hke a child whom no 

one heeds. 
Tumbled chuckling in the brook, all sleek and kind 

and cool! 

70 



HILL-FANTASY 71 

He had berries 'twixt his horns, crimson-red as 

cochineaL 
Bobbing, wagging wantonly they tickled him, and oh , 
How his deft lips puckered round the reed, and 

seemed to chase and steal 
Sky-music, earth-music, tree-music low! 

I said, ** Good-day, Thou!" He said, "Good-day, 
Thou!" 

Wiped his reed against the spotted doe-skin on his 
back. 

He said, "Come up here, and I will teach thee pip- 
ing now. 

While the earth is singing so, for tunes we shall not 
lack." 

Up scrambled I then, furry fingers helping me. 
Up scrambled I. So we sat beside the cairn. 
Broad into my face laughed that horned Thing so 

naughtily. 
Oh, it was a rascal of a woodland Satyr's bairn! 

"So blow, and so. Thou! Move thy fingers faster, 

look! 
Move them Hke the little leaves and whirHng midges. 

So! 



72 HILL-FANTASY 

Soon 'twill twist like tendrils and out-twinkle like 

the lost brook. 
Move thy fingers merrily, and blow! blow! blow!" 

Brown One! Hoofed One! beat the time to keep me 

straight. 
Kick it on the red stone, whistle in my ear. 
Brush thy crimson berries in my face, then hold thy 

breath, for — wait! 
Joy comes bubbling to my lips. I pipe! oh, hear! 

Blue sky, art glad of us? Green wood, art glad of us? 
Old hard-heart mountain, dost thou hear me, how 

I blow? 
Far away the sea-isles swim in sun-haze luminous. 
Each one has a color Uke the seven-splendored bow. 

Wind, wind, wind, dost thou mind me how I pipe, 

now? 
Chipmunk chatt'ring in the beech, rabbit in the 

brake? 
Furry arm around my neck: "Oh, thou art a brave 

one. Thou!" 
Satyr, little satyr-friend, my heart with joy doth 

ache! 



HILL-FANTASY 73 

Sky-music, earth-music, tree-music tremulous, 
Water over steaming rocks, water in the shade, 
Storm-tune and sun-tune, how they flock up unto 

us, 
Sitting by the red cairn, gay and unafraid! 

Brown One, hoofed One, give me nimble hoofs. 

Thou! 
Give me furry fingers and a secret furry tail! 
Pleasant are thy smooth horns : if their like were on 

my brow 
Might I not abide here, till the strong sun fail? — 

Oh, the sorry brown eyes! Oh, the soft kind hand- 
touch, 

Sudden brush of velvet ears across my wind-cool 
cheek ! 

"Play-mate, Pipe-mate, thou askest one good boon 
too much. 

I could never find thee horns, though day-long I 
should seek. 

"Yet, keep the pipe. Thou: I will cut another one. 
Keep the pipe and play on it for all the world to 
hear. 



74 HILL-FANTASY 

Ah, but it was good once to sit together in the sun! 
Though I have but half a soul, it finds thee very- 
dear! 

"Wise Thing, Mortal Thing, yet my half-soul fears 

thee! 
Take the pipe and go thy ways, — quick now, for 

the sun 
Reels across the hot west and stumbles dazzled to 

the sea. 
Take the pipe, and oh — one kiss! then run! runi 

run!" — 

Silence on the mountain. Lonely stands the high 

cairn. 
All the leaves a-shivering, all the stones dead-gray. 

thou cold small pipe, which way is fled that 

Satyr's bairn? 

1 am lost and all alone, and down drops the day. 

/ was on the mountain, wandering, wandering. 
There I got this Pipe o' dreams. Strange, when I blow, 
Something deep as human love starts a-crying, 

troubling. 
Is it only sky-music, earth-music low? 



WARNING 

Pan's people on the mountain, pale Mermaids in 
the sea, 

A Druid by the standing-stones, a Gipsy at the 
spring: — 

Oh, queer indeed are all the folk who keep me com- 
pany, 

If you believe the tales I tell when I go romancing! 

A satyr on the mountain, a small brown satyr-bairn, 
He piped to me and kissed me, beside the windy 

cairn. 
But all I truly saw there was one flat-heeled Old 

Maid: 
She had a most strong-minded look beneath a green 

sun-shade. 

I was a gipsy, kneeling beside a wild camp-fire, 
And down the red-leaf-road at dusk he came, my 
heart's desire ! 

75 



76 WARNING 

His silver harness jingled; he sang; — but, bless 

you, then 
I just was minding bacon for three hungry picnic- 



men 



Once Gabriel and Michael stood near me, side by 

side. 
Their hair was flame, their eyes were flame, their 

whispering wings swept wide. 
Great Gabriel and Michael! They were not there, 

you know, 
But I was bored, quite frankly bored, the Rector 

rambled so. 

So, when you read my verses, O Anyone Who 

Might, 
You must not mind stray angels or a sudden furry 

faun. 
They are my dear Dream-people: they are my 

heart's delight: 
But still I turn the bacon-fork, or sit in church and 



yawn 



MY HOUSE 

You'll follow the car-track down the hill, 
And cross the bridge by the dead-faced mill — 
(There's a row of poplars that shiver there, 
And thin bright water comes over the weir,) 
Then presently, turn to the left a bit, 
And there by the road my house will sit. 

Oh, such a plain white Puritan house! 
Proper as paint, and mild as a mouse; 
Good green shutters and lilac-trees. 
Hollyhocks nodding, and, if you please, 
A walk of flag-stones with grass between, 
And lichen ledges all mouldy green. 

Tinkle my bell, (there's a knocker, you'll see. 

But I wouldn't hear it thumping, maybe, 

Up in the garret rafters, or out 

In the kitchen, taking my turn about 

With the dishes,) tinkle, and turn and look 

At my hills, past the strawberry fields and the brook 

77 



78 MY HOUSE 

And the daisy meadow and dim beech wood, 
At my hills, — wide billows of wonder, good 
As a play for watching! You never know 
The next wise act in their all-day-show; 
Though you'd hardly guess it, they crouch so 

still, 
Great green hill over great green hill, 
With never a comment on Life or Death, 
Drawing their own slow cycles of breath. 

And long, oh, ever so long before 

You're done with looking, I'll come to the door. 

Covered with big blue apron and all. 

Unless I'm quite sure it's a Proper call; 

Decide if I like your looks, and say, 

(If I do) "Come in!" and show you the way 

To the room where the books live, crowded high 

To the very top of their ceiling-sky. 

Railing or preaching, inside, at us, 

But seeming most silent and decorous. 

I hope, if I Hke you, the weather '11 be cold. 
We'll blow up the fire on the hearth, and hold 
Our hands out to it, and somehow then 
We needn't chatter so much as when 



MY HOUSE 79 

We sit up stiff in my grandmother's chairs, 
And talk of the weather. 

How fire-shine scares 
The smallness from us, and makes us say 
Big slow things that are better than gay! 

— So, maybe, we'll half be friends before 
You stand again in the sunny door, 
Tread again down the flag-stones, greet 
My waiting hills, and go up the street, 
Willing, I hope, to come back again 
To my house, so Puritan white and plain; 
Willing, I hope, to come back to see 
My hills and my hollyhocks and Me! 

The architect showed me the plans to-day, 

But he's mortal slow to get under way! 

If my cellar is dug before frost gets in. 

And the men don't strike, if they once begin, — 

If my poems sell, (but how can they all?) 

There's the ghost of a chance that the day you call, 

(Follow the car-track down the hill. 

And cross the bridge by the poplar-mill,) 

There, as I said, my house will sit, 

Off to the side of the road a bit. 



So MY HOUSE 

And oh, though there aren't any hollyhocks, 
And my house still looks like a blank white box, 
And you can't find the flag-stones and lilac-trees, 
You mustn't be stiffish and solemn, please! 
You must take my hills and my house and me 
For a promise of all that we want to be. 

For I rather think, if I choose it so, 
My house, and those hollyhocks, will grow — 
Not till I'm spent and old, maybe, 
But surely someday, simple and free; 
Good at welcomes, and glad to greet 
Over the flag-stones, wishful feet : — 
And my hills, and my hearth, and even I 
Can make you happier, bye and bye! 



FREE 

The spring winds sweep my garden- wall ; 

The tall ships take the sea. 
I will be happy with them all, 

For now my heart is free. 

The swift years fly before my face 
Like swallows sharp and blue. 

From out the dark of Time and Space 
They never bring me You. 

And who You are I do not know 

I hardly long to see 
A face so dim, and feet so slow 

To cross the world to me. 

If You had loved me, there was time 

To find me out: but now 
I have more joy of wind or rhyme 

"^han dream-hands on my brow. 

8i 



82 FREE 

winds across my garden-wall ! 

O ships upon the sea ! 
Your kin am I: no more I call 

The wraith of Love to me! 



A SEA-SPELL 

The bay is bluer than all the sky; 
The sky is bluer than sapphire-stone; 
The wind and the wave, the wave and the wind, 
Beat and dazzle me glad and blind, 
Over the marshes blown. 

Once I was a plover who ran, who ran, 
A crying shadow along the foam. 
Once I was a gull in the swing of the spray. 
Over green shallows I hung all day, 
Till sunset carried me home. 

Once I was a ship with glorious sails 
That leapt to the love of the wind. 
Up over the edge of the world I fled. 
Sun-followed and fleet-foam-heralded: — 
The hidden tides knew my mind. 

But now I am only a girl who runs, 
A laughing pagan with tangled hair. 
Plover and gull and ship was I, — 
Perchance when my body comes to die 
My soul shall again fly fair? 
83 



NOCTURNE — (FOR MUSIC) 

Far, — far, — oh, far, — 
The sweet sea-silence lies. 
Past the surfy bar 
The dark tide dreams and sighs. - 

Night, — trembling night, — 
And only I to see 
Heaven's reeling white 
Star-haunted mystery. — 

Far, — far, — oh, far, — 
The strong sea-silence broods 
— Hush, oh falling star! 
Hurt not Heav'n's solitudes! 



84 



HEART 0' THE WOOD 

I WENT up on foxes' feet: 

I went up on thrushes' wings. 

O Thou Heart o' the Wood, thou sweet 
Company of Silent Things ! 

No one said me nay. I passed 

Wingwise up the quiet tracks 
Where the tall dead pine-trees cast 

Shadows on each others' backs. 
They were rich with bronze and tall; 

They were warm and incense-rare; 
And the Sun went through them all 

As a king goes up a stair. 
Not a squirrel, not a bird, 

Not a heavy human stir. 
All the wind I ever heard 

Was an idle loiterer. 
At the top I stood agaze 

Where the forest fell apart. 
Caught the blue of gleaming bays, 

Searched the faint horizon's heart; 
85 



86 HEART 0' THE WOOD 

Stared down vistas green and gold: 

Fairy ferns in companies, 
Beech leaves tossing manifold 

As the tides of tropic seas: — 
Sat one moment with the Sun, 

Loosed his hand at last and leapt, 
Like a diver at a run. 

Where the green leaf-water swept. 
Ah, it swirled above my head ! 

Far and cool the sunshine grew, 
And my feet that slipped and fled 

Down the leafy whirl-pool drew. 
Drowned in leaves — in leaves I swung. 

Fathoms deep I trod the green 
Trembling silence; or I hung 

Swaying o'er the depth serene. 
But my breath was light and free, 

And my eyes were wide, for oh, 
Wonder — Wonder — sang to me 

From the silence green and low ! 

I came down, nor felt my feet : 
I came down, nor needed wings. 

O Thou Heart o' the Wood, thou sweet 
Company of Silent Things ! 



WATER FANTASY 

O BROWN brook, O blithe brook, what will you say 
to me 

If I take off my heavy shoon and wade you child- 
ishly? 

O take them off, and come to me. 
You shall not fall. Step merrily! 

But, cool brook, but, quick brook, and what if I 

should float 
White-bodied in your pleasant pool, your bubbles 

at my throat? 

If you are but a mortal maid, 
Then I shall make you half afraid. 
The water shall be dim and deep, 
And silver fish shall lunge and leap 
About you, coward mortal thing. 
, But if you come desiring 

87 



88 WATER FANTASY 

To win once more your naiadhood, 
How you shall laugh and find me good — 
Aly golden surfaces, my glooms, 
IVIy secret grottoes' dripping rooms. 
My depths of warm wet emerald. 
My mosses floating fold on fold ! 
And where I take the rocky leap 
Like wild white water shall you sweep; 
Like wild white water shall you cry, 
Trembling and turning to the sky, 
While all the thousand-fringed trees 
Glimmer and glisten through the breeze. 
I bid you come ! Too long, too long, 
You have forgot my undersong. 
And this perchance you never knew : 
E'en I, the brook, have need of you. 
My naiads faded long ago, — 
My little nymphs, that to and fro 
Within my waters sunnily 
Made small white flames of tinkling glee. 
I have been lonesome, lonesome; yea, 
E'en I, the brook, until this day. 
Cast off your shoon; ah, come to me, 
And I will love you lingeringly! 



WATER FANTASY 89 

wild brook, O wise brook, I cannot come, alas! 

1 am but mortal as the leaves that flicker, float, and 

pass. 
My body is not used to you ; my breath is fluttering 

sore; 
You clasp me round too icily. Ah, let me go once 

more! 
Would God I were a naiad-thing whereon Pan's 

music blew; 
But woe is me! you pagan brook, I cannot stay 

with you! 



THE GLAD DAY 

I HAVE not thought of sorrow 
The whole day long, nor now. 
I wandered out, and oh, what winds 
Laid kisses on my brow ! 

And all the world was kind to me: 
Each spear of grass was gay; 
The brown brooks had a mind to me, 
And sang me on my way. 

I conquered many a climbing road, 
And always at the crest 
The winds of all the world abode. 
And shadows stopped to rest. 

The hills like lazing gods of eld 
With sleepy shoulders lay, 
And all the soaring vault upheld 
Of high blue heavenly day. 
90 



THE GLAD DAY 91 

Far, far below the village spire 
Pricked sharply to the sky. 
"Strong pagan hills of my desire! 
Frail house of God!" thought I. 

Far, far below the river crept; 
The willow leaves made stir 
Of blowing silver, touched and swept 
By wind, wild lute-player. 

(The river-wind a minstrel is, 
A minstrel deft and blind. 
The willows know his fingers' kiss 
As strings the player's mind.) 

The sweet shorn fields, the fairy fern. 
The roadside's gipsy bloom. 
Young goldenrod, — oh, every turn 
Was blithe with green and gloom ! 

I did not meet a single face 
That would not smile at me. 
Perhaps the sun's vast golden grace 
Set love and laughter free. 



THE GLAD DAY 

The gravestones by the poplar tree 
Full carelessly I passed. 
I thought that Death himself must see 
How sweet was Life, at last. 

And I came home at evening time, 
But still my heart doth sing, — 
So have I wrought this wavering rhyme 
For my remembering. 

I have not thought of sorrow 
The whole day long, nor now. 
Good-night, fair world! and oh, what stars 
Weave splendor round my brow ! 



EARTH-BOUND 

I CANNOT fly to Paradise: 

I cannot leave at all 
The homely heaven-path that lies 

Hard by my own house- wall. 

stars and suns that wait on God, 

I know you not. I know 
That I am kin of leaf and sod, 

Of rain, white frost, and snow. 

dreams that pierce the heart of life, 

I feel you flashing by, 
But may not watch the immortal strife 

Ye wage, too bright to die. 

My own dear dreams are small and still: 
How some one likes me; how 

It was a joy to climb the hill 
Where west- wind stroked my brow; 

How I shall make a dress to-day 

Of merry woodland green. 
That to Myself Myself may say 

"To Fairyland you've been!" 

93 



94 EARTH-BOUND 

How I am glad the seasons change; 

More glad my friends change not: 
How even troubles sharp and strange 

I somehow have forgot. 

I cannot fly to Paradise : 
My earth-stained wings are slow. 

Not being wonderful or wise 
The earth-joy keeps me low. 

Yet to the secret Hand of God 

I hold, nor feel afraid. 
He knows me Soul; He knows me sod; 

For both He dreamed and made! 



THE SECRET THING 

I SOUGHT to sing the secret of my heart; 
But it escaped me Hke a wild-winged bird, 
And to the lonely Heavens did depart 
Until a faint lost note was all I heard. 
And no one else on all the earth could hear 
What I had deemed so marvelously clear. 

I sought to tell the secret of my heart, 
Whispering low, to one who loved me well. 
But like a breath of dawn I felt it start 
And pass before one precious symbol fell. 

And she I loved so only looked at me. 

"What fragrant wind was that? Oh, sweet!" 
said she. 

So I shall keep it hid eternally. 

It is so filmy, exquisite, and wild: 

And yet so bright and eloquent and free. 

Full many a barren day it has beguiled. 
But if none else its loveliness may see 
Think not I play the miser wilhngly! 
95 



" OH NEVER SHUT YOUR DOOR ON ME" 

Oh never shut your door on me 
Because your house will make me sad. 

I dance enough: I always see 
Enough sweet things to keep me glad. 

And if you shut your door and say 
"My house is dark and dull for you: 

Run far, run far, and love your day, 
Your sun and wind and flowery dew, 

"I must not make you sad," — Ah so 
I shall be saddest and most still. 

And never spread my wings to blow 
Across the sunny windswept hill: 

I shall but stand outside your door 
And cry, and trouble you, till you 

Must let me in to you once more, 

Or hear me cry, the whole day through. 
96 



"OH NEVER SHUT YOUR DOOR ON ATE" 97 

What do I care how dark your hall 

With lonely strange unlonged-for night? 

How cold your hearth, how fast to fall 
The tears you hid from stark day-hght? 

Perhaps the fire is Ht, for me! 

Perhaps the chambers shine and sing. 
You do not know! Your agony 

To me may be a brave bright thing! 

And even if I cannot make 

The cold house warm and happy, yet 
Two hearts are swifter not to ache: 

Two heads are swifter to forget. 

And if you shut your door on me 

Too long, until, forspent, I go 
Away, and leave you utterly, — 

Oh, I could never shine and blow! 



YEARS 

In the night I awake, when the moon is dead, 
When the gloomy streets are untra versed : 
When the silence sings, and the night-lamp's gleam 
Flickers Hke breath of a dying dream. 

I turn on my face, I cover my ears. 
But I cannot escape the tramp of the Years: 
The Years I have known, the Years I must know, 
And the Years where my body never may go. 

In the night I awake, when the moon is dead. 

My dreams like the light are all scattered. 

I turn on my face, I cover my ears, 

But they march, they march, the Hosts of the Years. 

They march to the brink of a strange bright sea, 
And fall in the tides of Eternity. — 
Like a ghost-ridden child, I cover my ears, 
But I hear the death of the strong-shod Years. 

98 



TO LONELY YOUTH 

So, lean your head against my knee, 
And cry, and tell it all to me. 

You need not play-act now, poor child; 
You of the windy heart and wild, 
Whom all the boys and girls pass by 
Because you are not like them. 

Cry! 
Cry till the laughter flickers through, 
Bright from the good brave pride in you, 
Bidding you know how young you are, 
Happy with sunbeams or a star, 
Or sea-storms or a butterfly. 
You, whom the boys and girls pass by 
Have merrier thoughts each dawn of day 
Than in a year of dancing, they! 

And yet, you envy them. Ah, there! 
Toss back your tangle-top, and stare 
Straight in my eyes, you child. 

How deep 
The full-grown passionate wonders sleep! 

99 



loo TO LONELY YOUTH 

You cannot guess how rich you are, 
Lover of silence and a star: — 
Longing, (great eyes and gleaming curls) 
Just to be like all other girls; 
Just to be gay, and quick, and wear 
The same wide ribbons in your hair. 
To talk the same sharp chatter, change 
The same small jokes. 

While you — can range 
The Silver Mountains of the Moon 
In curly-footed elfin shoon; 
And feel the Spirits of the Air 
Whisper across that tumbled hair; 
Can hear, not very far away, 
True Joy and Sorrow, calUng, "Lay 
Your childhood by! We come to meet 
Full soon, the twinkle of your feet; 
And we shall make you wise, and strong, 
And gay as gods, not girls, ere long!" 

Oh, lean your head against my knee, 
And listen, breathing quietly. 

For all the ribbons and the curls. 
You are not like those other girls. — 



TO LONELY YOUTH loi 

Dear heart, you cannot laugh as they, 
Who never know what makes you gay: 
You must be lonely, often; yes, 
And learn to love your loneliness. 

Yes, lonely, — wistful eyes! 

child, 
Vexed by the windy heart and wild, 
Youth hurts you, and must hurt you. Yet 
Hold to your dreams! nor once forget 
They shall be utter Youth for you 
When others' dancing-days are through. 
Hold to your dreams! 

What if, to-night, 
You seemed so stupid, and the light 
Young laughter lashed you? — some day, sweet. 
Your turn shall come! your turn, to greet 
High Friends, deep Love: no puppet-play. 
But Love's last pain and pride, some day. 
And nights like this, Tired Heart, will seem 
The least queer shadow of a dream! 

And yet (great eyes and tear-wet curls) 

You would be like those other girls! 

So be it! Run! Blow out the light. 

But — no more tears! — You child, good-night! 



I WENT TO SEEK HER 

I WENT to seek her, for I love her. 
I went to seek her; she was gone. 
Sunshine, seeing all things, canst discover 
Which of all the roads she wanders on? 

Wind, knowing wild earth's cracks and crannies, 
Hast brushed her temples and her hair? 
In a hid place, where no beast nor man is, - — 
Where she wanders lonely, yet so fair? 

Green is the mountain and the meadow: 
Silver-streaked the whispering willow- tree: 
River sharp with sun or soft with shadow: 
Clouds like to lily-blooms, — but she? — 

Ah, I will seek her, for I love her! 
I will follow, over hill and sea! 
Flying air-folk, help me to discover 
Whither like a wild bird wanders she! 



THE RED ROAD 

The wild blood of the gipsy folk 

Is staining all the wood, 
The hazes Hke their camp-fires smoke, - 

Alas, wild brotherhood ! 

Oh, sweet are berries on the thorn 

And apples stol'n by night, 

For we of gipsy folk were born, 

To blink by the red fire-light. 
To blink by the red fire-light, oh child. 

To stare at the naked stars. 
What wonder that your heart is wild, 

And walls seem prison-bars? 

And now the roads are free and clean, 
And now the wind is cold; 

The crimson bleeds across the green. 
The green is rich with gold. 
The river hisses at the race. 
The yellow leaves float fast; 
But we are wanting from our place. 
Though the gipsy winds blow past. 
103 



I04 THE RED ROAD 

Though the gipsy winds blow high, oh child! 

Though the gipsy moon leans low. 
Alas that hearts so keen and wild 

May not rise up and go ! 

Oh, I am old and I must die, 

But once my hair was thick, 
And full of gipsy blood was I — 

The rich, the bold, the quick. 

The Little Road across the Hill, 

The Great Road to the Sea, 

The Willow Paths, they call me still, 

And the Red Road sings to me. 
The Red Road sings to me, oh child, 

Where the leaves like fire-flames blow. 
Oh, heart of my young heart, born wild, 

Rise up, and run, and go! 



NOT FOR YOUR SAKES 

Not for your sakes; — although I can but see 
How glad you are to greet my joy, my youth, 
(For you remember suddenly in me 
Your May-days) — ah, but I must tell the 

truth: 
Not all to help your groping loneliness, 
Nor yet because I love you (though I do) 
To-day I kneel beside you, swift to press 
Your hands in mine, with laughter; not for you, 
But for myself. 

When I shall sometime grow 
A Httle old, a Httle dim and strange, 
When fine gray veils across my brightness blow. 
And mirrors whisper, "Look! you change. You 

change!" 
When somehow friends no more beset me; dreams 
Are dumb at night, and lame at dawn of day; 
When stealthy as a star the Glory seems 
To fold itself in fog and tread away; — 

105 



io6 NOT FOR YOUR SAKES 

Then, when I think, *'My turn at last is come. 
Time to put by the wind and sun and sea: 
Time to begin the darkening path-way home, 
Where my flown Youth, bright-winged, awaiteth 

me: 
Time to slip back, slip back, and be at rest," — 
Ah then, to know my youth uncursed, unmarred 
By coldness and bright cruelty, the zest 
Of feet that dance on hearts: — to take the hard 
Low shadowed road with no vain bitterness, 
No bHnd self-hatred, but as one who goes 
Safe through the lonely places, lanternless, 
Yet trusting that the road is one he knows; — 
Oh, for myself, myself, I come to you. 
Frail blue-veined hands, dulled eyes, and ques- 
tioning ears. 
Loving you truly, as I can but do. 
But seeing half myself through these my tears! 



COMRADES 
You need not say one word to me, as up the hill we 

(Night-time, white-time, all in the whispenng snow) 
You need not say one word to me, although the 

whispering trees 
Seem strange and old as pagan priests in swaying 

mysteries. 

You need not think one thought of me, as up the 

trail we go, 
(Hill- trail, still- trail, all in the hiding snow;) 
You need not think one thought of me, although a 

hare runs by, 
And off behind the tumbled cairn we hear a red fox 

cry. 

Oh, good and rare it is to feel, as through the night 

we go, 
(Wild-wise, child-wise, all in the secret snow,) 
That we are free of heart and foot as hare and fox 

are free. 
And yet that I am glad of you, and you are glad of 

me! 

107 



SILENCE 

In the old days, when first I knew you, we 
Were not afraid of Silence. We could stand 
Whole growing-spaces, staring splendidly 
Across the moon-white palpitating land, 
And turn, and chmb again the mountain-trail 
With but a sigh of joy. Or we could sit 
Half-hours by the wood-fire, while the frail 
Fierce sparks whirled starwards from the heart of it. 
Our thoughts, it seemed, their quiet distance kept. 
Their high-roads never meeting, side by side, 
Moonward and starward, innocent they swept: 
And we were glad and silent, and the wide 
Still world seemed all our play-ground, for we knew 
That we could dream together, I and you. 

But now, we are afraid of Silence. We 
Dare not a moment let her in to us. 
Lest she betray us, blankly, utterly. 
She who was once so kind, now perilous 

1 08 



SILENCE 109 

As some sly enemy, must stand apart. — 
The shuttle of our words shoots to and fro 
In worthless webs; while constantly my heart 
Yearns back to Silence, begging her to show 
The old clear look, hushed hps, free eyes. Alas! 
Her treacherous throbbing presence we must flee: 
Must blur the precious moments, till they pass 
To leave me hurt by you. (And you by me?) 
O bitter broken day when first we knew 
We dared not dream together, I and you ! 



AFTER COPYING GOODLY POETRY 

WORDS, strong lovely words, would ye were mine, 

And not another's! I am covetous 

Of your slow cadences and flight divine. 

Would that my verses cried and murmured thus! 

For as my hand moved over you, I knew 
How beautiful you were. I loved you well, 
As the lips love rose-petals cold with dew, 
As fingers love the flutings of a shell, — 

And as the heart loves one so very fair 
She must be always distant, like the moon. 
So did I love you, delicate verses, rare 
And wondrous with the dawn-wind's throbbing 
tune. 

O words, strong lovely words! would ye were mine! 
— I know I am too vainly covetous; 
For if I die without one singing sign. 
What matters it while ye can echo thus? 



AFTER COPYING GOODLY POETRY m 

And yet my heart is faint and hot in me. 
As childless wives for stranger-babies pine, 
My heart cries out, oh, very hungrily. 
Words, words, strong lovely words, would ye were 
mine! 



THE HERMIT ON THE DUNES 



Far away to the South 
Where the sea-hill heaps 
A gray gull wanders, 
A gray sail sweeps. 

Far away to the South 
Where the sky leans low 
My gray thoughts journey, 
My gray dreams blow. 

In my house by the dunes 
I have Silence for wife, 
Though the long shore shudders 
With the surf's drawn strife. 

Oh, she broods by my hearth 
And she bends to my bed. 
She is strange as the old Norns 
And dumb as the dead. 



THE HERMIT ON THE DUNES 113 

Far away to the South 
Where the sea heaps high 
The gulls fade ever, 
The sails all die, — 

— Far away to the South — 



II 

Over the moors, the sweet scorched moors, 
(Fern and bay and a blackberry brake,) 
The road to the harbor-town allures, 
Winding away like a warm brown snake. 
Quivering up in the hot blue light 
The village spires stand sharp and white: 
The wind-mill twinkles; the harbor shines 
Over the tops of the dwarfed dune-pines; 
And the peak of a sloop slips past the bar, 
Gleaming and still as a sea-bound star. 

O huddled house on the drifted dune, 

Have you locked in your heart my right to June? 

Will you hold me here with my head in my hands, 

Staring across the blank bright sands, 

Out to sea, and always to sea. 

Where only the gulls' wings beckon me? 



114 THE HERMIT ON THE DUNES 

I am hungry for faces, thirsty for words; 

I am troubled with water and weary of birds: 

Shall I go, past the clattering gray-winged mil!, 

Down the steep lane over the hill? 

Where the poplar trees in the church-yard quake, 

And the bees in the roses rumble and shake, 

Where the sunburned children dance laughing 

down 
To the long wet wharves at the back of the town? 

— But one gray house in the lane is blind. 
Its silver poplars know well the wind: 
Its damask roses hang red, hang deep. 
But the house is shuttered and fast asleep. 

I mil not go down the crooked lane. 
I think it is better to wait. 

To wait? 
Shall I then turn to a boy again, 
Or my mother stand by the swinging gate? 

— Over the moors, the sweet scorched moors, 
(Blackbird, swallow, and butterfly,) 

The road to the harbor- town allures, 
But why should I follow it? Ah, why? 



THE HERMIT ON THE DUNES 115 

in 

Seven gulls sit screaming high 
On her prow that cut the sky; 
And her name is rubbed away 
By the wind-and- water play; 
While the silent ceaseless sands 
Hide her quick keel in their hands. 

All her goodly timbers gape, 
Hurt and humbled out of shape, 
And the tides sweep green and cold 
Through her hollow-hearted hold. 

O tall ship! tall ship! I too 

Cast aground grow old like you. 

Does your heart beat? Have you breath 

Underneath those bones of death? 

Do you dream? do you awake 

Shuddering at dim day-break, 

Only to fall back again 

To the old-time shift of pain : 

Tide, and sun, and wind, and rain? 

tall ship! tall ship! I too 
Once was high-sea-bold as you! 



ii6 THE HERMIT ON THE DUNES 

IV 

I watched the endless gull-wings fade, 
I dreamed my old dim endless things : 
Looked up, and saw a gold-haired maid 
Against the sea, with arms like wings 

Spreading her green scarf to the wind, 
Leaning and laughing to the sun. — 
Ah me! her brightness made me blind, 
Till I could hardly see her run 

White-footed down the thin white foam, 
SUm-bodied up the slippery sands; 
Like some wild sea-maid, dancing home 
With shining feet and flickering hands. 

— I crouched beneath the dune. She passed; 
Her song, sea-smothered, and her gleams 
Fading along the surf at last 

Like all the sun that haunts my dreams. 

— The brave day fades, too blue, too fair. 
Sunset and silence and the night. — 

O golden head and wild heart, where 
Are you some glad home's lasting light? 



THE HERMIT ON THE DUNES 117 



Low water — low water ^ silence on the sea, — 
Across the moors the Sunday bells ring warm and 
drowsily. 

Low water — low water — dim and smooth and pale. 
Across the moors the windmill waves an idle 
Sabbath sail. 

Low water — low water — plover peeping faint, — 
Across the moors the church-doors swing for sinner 
and for saint. 

Low water — low water — silence on the sea, — 
Across the moors they pray to God, while here He 
breathes on me! 

VI 

Suddenly I awoke. The wind was awake before. 
He tramped on the desolate dunes; he battered and 

beat on my door. 
And the sea rose up to his shout; and mad, stark 

mad in the night, 
Plunging and grappling and great they staggered 

and swung to their fight. 



ii8 THE HERMIT ON THE DUNES 

I leaned out into the dark, to the stinging smother- 
ing wrack; 

But my eyes were blinder than Fear: I was beaten 
and buffetted back. 

And they struggled and stumbled and groaned in 
the dark of the dunes till day, 

Till the wind sank down in the sand, and the sea 
crept wounded away. 

Then I slept, but my dreams went wild; for I fought 

with Myself, and failed; 
And I knew that the stars were ashamed, and the 

sea-gulls jeered me and railed. 
Till I rose with a terrible cry, and flung off the 

blood from my face, — 
"Oh bitter and barren Self! Give place to my soul! 

give place!" 
And a God flashed out of a cloud, and his eyes were 

like strong kind flame, 
But I woke as he swept me a sword, and cheered me, 

and cried my name, — 
And I thought that a thousand years had been 

tossed to Eternity, 
Since suddenly I awoke, and the wind cried out, 

and the sea. 



THE HERMIT ON THE DUNES 119 

VII 

I shall not lie in any grave 
Beneath a toppling lichened stone. 
When I grow weariest, the wave 
And turning tide shall have their own. 

I cannot wait for folk to find 

The shattered burned-out wreck of me: 

To trouble it with being kind 

And mocking its mortahty, 

And stealing from my helpless hold 
The lonely death that I have earned: 
To dare the untried utmost, bold 
With the sea-splendor I have learned. 

I shall not wait too long, at last; 
But as, so often, I have leapt 
Light-limbed across the surf, and cast 
My sorrows from me as I swept 

Out — out — across the clean wild foam, — 
So then, I shall be sure and free. 
Only, I need not think of home, 
Nor fear the hunger of the sea. 



I20 THE HERMIT ON THE DUNES 

I know it cannot be too strange 
To die, as I have lived, alone, 
i — But ah, my Soul! where wilt thou range? 
What tide can claim thee for its own? — 



THE SONGS OF CONN THE FOOL 



I WILL go up the mountain after the Moon: 
She is caught in a dead fir-tree. 
Like a great pale apple of silver and pearl, 
Like a great pale apple is she. 

I will leap and will catch her with quick cold hands 
And carry her home in my sack. 
I will set her down safe on the oaken bench 
That stands at the chimney-back. 

And then I will sit by the fire all night, 
And sit by the fire all day. 
I will gnaw at the Moon to my heart's delight 
Till I gnaw her slowly away. 

And while I grow mad with the Moon's cold taste 
The World will beat at my door, 
Crying "Come out! " and crying " Make haste, 
And give us the Moon once more! " 



122 THE SONGS OF CONN THE FOOL 

But I shall not answer them ever at all. 
I shall laugh, as I count and hide 
The great black beautiful Seeds of the Moon 
In a flower-pot deep and wide. 

Then I shall lie down and go fast asleep, 
Drunken with flame and aswoon. 
But the seeds will sprout and the seeds will leap, 
The subtle swift seeds of the Moon. 

And some day, all of the World that cries 
And beats at my door shall see 
A thousand moon-leaves spring from my thatch 
On a wonderful white Moon-tree! 

Then each shall have Moons to his heart's desire: 
Apples of silver and pearl; 
Apples of orange and copper fire 
Setting his five wits aswirl! 

And then they will thank me, who mock me 

now, 
"Wanting the Moon is he," — 
Oh, I'm off to the mountain after the Moon, 
Ere she falls from the dead fir-tree! 



THE SONGS OF CONN THE FOOL 123 

II 

You had better be careful and make the door faster 
to-night. 

I know there are Those round the house, that are 
hungry for good fire-hght. 

If you open the door, they will thrust their long feet 
in the crack, 

And leap on the threshold, and drive you all shiver- 
ing back! 

And they'll tease you with curly queer tongues in 

your faces like flame, 
With winking their round eyes and snapping their 

fingers and mincing your name. 
Till you cover your ears and your eyes and start 

praying, while They 
With the cakes from the cup-board, the ale from the 

jug, do away. 

And One will lie down in your bed, and his feet will 

be black 
With the bad lasting mud of the bogs and the dark 

mountain-track; 



124 THE SONGS OF CONN THE FOOL 

And One will go worry the poor simple pigs in the 

sty, 
In a shape like a pig, silver-skinned, with an 

emerald eye. 

Oh, I tell you, it's best to be careful and bar the 
door faster this night! 

They are dancing out there in the dark, but they 
hunger for good fire-light. 

It's a wonder, now, you to be sitting so pleasant and 
still. 

Don't you hear Them there, scuffling and scram- 
bling across the door-sill? 

Ill 

There came two ravens to carry me away. 

And they flew, and they flew, all the livelong day. 

One took me by the head, and one by the feet. 
Like a strange stupid corpse that is borne down the 

street. 
One tickled all my face with the brushing of his 

wings, 
While my hair blew whistling back like a hundred 

wild harp-strings. 



THE SONGS OF CONN THE FOOL 125 

The other pecked and snatched at my foot all the 

day 
As they carried me away, and carried me away. 

They carried me across from the shore to the sea, 
And that was a trouble and a fear to me. 
They carried me across from the sea to the shore, 
And my bones they were weary and my soul it was 

sore. 
They carried me across from the day to the night, 
And it seemed wrong to me when I could not see the 

light. 
They carried me across from the night to the day, 
But I had forgotten how to greet the sun and pray. 

They lit upon a pine-tree, and the tree it was high, 
On a bare bald mountain that wore against the 

sky. 
They tangled up my feet in the needles of the 

pine. 
And they gave me cones for bread and the bitter 

pitch for wine. 
And they swung me up and down till I cracked the 

brittle sky, 
But I had forgotten how to shudder or to cry. 



126 THE SONGS OF CONN THE FOOL 

The sun came so close that he troubled all my head. 
He was like a smelting-furnace, very hot, very 

red. 
The stars came so close that I longed to snatch them 

down. 
They were sharp shining ones, like king's jewels in a 

crown. 

And the two ravens sat in the dark pine-tree, 
And they jeered and they jibed and they screamed 

loud at me. 
The pine-pitch smeared my mouth and the cones I 

could not eat. 
And the needles pricked and wove round my head 

and my feet. 
And I had forgotten how to sing or to pray; 
And I had forgotten if it were night or day. 

And there I might have stayed till it came my time 

to die, 
But an Angel out of Heaven passed fl3dng quickly 

by. 
He blew upon my feet, and he blew upon my head. 
And "Wherefore lie you here?" were the words 

that he said. 



THE SONGS OF CONN THE FOOL 127 

Then I fell a thousand fathoms, and I flew a thou- 
sand miles, 

And I feared as I flew for the two ravens' wiles. 

But the Angel went behind, like a goodly wind and 
wise, 

And he carried me across, as a homeward swallow 
flies. 

Oh, he carried me across from the night to the day, 
And then I remembered how to greet the sun and 

pray. 
He carried me across from the sea to the shore, 
And when I saw the grass, I blessed him even more. 
He carried me across, and he left me, and he went 
Like a fog that dissolves, like a wind that is spent. 

Then I walked upon my feet to my own cabin-door, 
And there was my good hound lying on the floor; 
But I heard the hearth-fire sing and the clock tick 

on the shelf 
Before I remembered that I was myself! 

And I ate a crumb of bread, and I drank a sup of 

wine: 
It was sweeter than the cones and the evil pitch of 

pine: 



128 THE SONGS OF CONN THE FOOL 

And I fell upon my knees and began to sing and pray, 
For I thought that it was best to be thanking God 

that day. 
(Oh, there came two ravens to carry me away!) 

IV 

You must do nothing false 
Or cruel-Hpped or low; 
For I am Conn the Fool, 
And Conn the Fool will know. 

I went by the door 

When Patrick Joyce looked out. 

He did not wish for me 

Or anyone about. 

He thought I did not see 
The fat bag in his hand. 
But Conn heard clinking gold 
And Conn could understand. 

I went by the door 

Where Michael Kane lay dead. 

I saw his Mary tie 

A red shawl round her head: 



THE SONGS OF CONN* THE FOOL 129 

I saw a dark man lean 
Against her garden-wall. 
They did not know that Conn 
Walked by at late dusk-fall. 

You must not scold or lie, 
Or hate or steal or kill, 
For I shall tell the wind 
That leaps along the hill. 

And he will tell the stars 
That sing and never lie: 
And they will shout your sin 
In God's face, bye and bye. 

And God will not forget 
For all He loves you so. 
He made me Conn the Fool, 
And bade me always know! 



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MAY 8 1913 









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